BELMONTE, ISAAC NUÑEZ (Don Manuel de):

By: Richard Gottheil

Dutch statesman; born in Amsterdam; died there in 1704. He was not a son of Jacob Belmonte who came from Madeira in 1614, as no mention is made of a son Isaac in the records of the Portuguese community at Amsterdam. From the year 1664 he was agent general, and from 1674 resident of the king of Spain to the Netherlands. He was created "Comes Palatinus" in 1693 by the German emperor, and did much to conserve friendly relations between Spain and the Netherlands. His correspondence with the Spanish government between the years 1667 and 1691 is preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional at Madrid (MS. cc. 50, Nos. 899 and 900).

Nuñez was of a literary turn of mind. He wrote a poem on the martyr Abraham Nuñez Bernal; in 1676 he founded the poetic academy Los Sitibundos, and in 1685 the Academia de los Floridos. In 1683 De Barrios dedicated to him and others his "Triumpho del Govierno Popular"; in 1689 David Pardo, his "Compendio de Dinim" (see "Catalogue . . . de feu M. Isaac da Costa," No. 2306); and in 1693 Isabelle de Correa, her translation of Babtiste Guarini's Italian pastoral "Pastor Fido" (De los Rios, "Etudes . . . sur les Juifs d'Espagne," p. 585).

The beautifully carved tombstone of Isaac Nuñez is still to be seen in the cemetery at Oudekerk near Amsterdam. It is probable that his son was the Baron de Belmont who in 1700 addressed a memorial to Sir William Beeston, governor of Jamaica, concerning the extraordinary taxes levied upon the Jews of that island ("Proc. Amer. Jew. Hist. Soc." ii. 165; Kayserling, in "Jew. Quart. Rev." xii. 712).

G.